


Necromancy

by lunylovegoodlover



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunylovegoodlover/pseuds/lunylovegoodlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days, Molly amuses herself by calling them her ghosts. She really is a seer of sorts, she thinks. Or maybe she’s just half-way to the realm of the dead herself. She certainly spends enough time around corpses. Like a disease, she thinks. Everyone I touch turns into a ghost. Well, some of that is about to be fixed. Molly Hooper, necromancer. It has a nice ring to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, so, this is my first foray into the Sherlock fandom, but I figured now's the time! Had to get out one last (or first) post-Richenbach fic before we actually know the truth.

Some days, Molly amuses herself by calling them her ghosts. She really is a seer of sorts, she thinks. Or maybe she’s just half-way to the realm of the dead herself. She certainly spends enough time around corpses.

The text comes at a bad moment, it’s distinct ringtone echoing throughout the morgue just as she opens the body bag. “Sorry,” she says, slipping off her gloves with practiced ease. “I have to get this.” Greg raises an eyebrow, surprised, but doesn’t stop her as she pulls out her phone. As she stares at the screen, he thinks that, just for that moment, there’s something a little different about her. She’s standing differently, maybe, or perhaps it’s just the look of concentration on her face. It’s the look he normally sees her direct at particularly mysterious corpses, and he wonders absently what kind of text would elicit such a response.

She types a reply, but doesn’t yet put the phone away. “Sorry,” she says again, glancing up to meet his eyes briefly. “I just have to wait for a reply. A friend’s coming to visit.” She smiles a little as she speaks, but it’s the uncertain smile of someone who knows they should be happy even if they aren’t.

“That’s nice,” he says anyway, giving her a real smile in return. She returns it, but there’s an anxiety in the back of her eyes that he can’t quell. 

They’re not friends, not really, just two people who were tied together through work and a man who’s now gone. Despite that, ever since – since that day – he’s found he’s been working with her more. She always seems to be at the morgue, pleasantly showing him dead bodies and saying nothing else. The beautiful young woman he met at Baker Street on Christmas so long ago – was it really only two years ago? – is long gone.

Her text comes a moment later. She scrambles to look at it, visibly relaxing when she finally reads it. A moment later, her gloves are back on and all her focus is back on the body. She walks him through the highlights of the autopsy report, confident on this familiar ground.

There’s no point in lying to the dead, she’s realized. Maybe that’s why she likes them so much. She hates lying, hates even just omitting things. She’s an open person by nature – the easiest book in the world to read. She loathes subterfuge with everything she has in her, and it feels like that’s been the only thing in her life for the past two years. She’s gotten quite good at it, actually. No one looks at meek little Molly Hooper and thinks, “That woman has somehow become chief-logistics-organizer for a vigilante organization that’s not entirely on the right side of the law and is populated mainly by walking, talking, incredibly infuriating corpses.”

She walks Greg through the highlights of the autopsy report. Cause of death is clear: a gunshot through the head. It’s the shot itself that’s interesting. It doesn’t look like any bullet hole she’s ever seen before.

“I did a little research,” she says, “and the closest match I could find is a bullet from a military grade sniper rifle.”

“What’s a sniper doing in the middle of London shooting innocent citizens?” Greg asks. Molly thinks of her ghosts and the text she just received, and doubts that Wilsham was as innocent as Greg thinks.

A woman walks into the morgue just as Greg is leaving. She smiles at him absently and calls him by name, but he’s absolutely positive that he’s never seen her before.

“Are you working the Wilsham case?” she asks. When he nods, she just says, “Be very careful, Inspector.”

“Did you have to scare him?” Molly asks as soon as Greg’s out the door. The woman, whose real name Molly doesn’t know, but whom she calls Anthea, laughs. It’s not entirely a pleasant sound.

“This is him, then?” she says, looking down at what once was Joe Wilsham. 

“Yes,” Molly says, slightly flustered. She wishes that Anthea would at least give her some warning before showing up at the morgue. Though she isn’t quite sure that the other woman is completely human, Anthea is very much alive. It says something about Molly that that scares her more than the alternative. “Is he one of yours?”

“He worked for the government, yes,” Anthea says. Her detachment makes Molly wince.

“Are you going to let Greg keep the case?”

“I’ll be keeping an eye on it,” Anthe says. She frowns slightly as she transfers her gaze to Molly, and it’s worse than Sherlock used to be. With him, at least you knew that in a moment he would move on to other, more important things. But with Anthea (and, Molly suspects, her boss), you know she’ll always be watching. Once you’ve caught Big Brother’s attention, he never looks away. “You’ll tell me if anything unusual happens?” Anthea says. It’s not really a question.

“I always do,” Molly says. Gathering up her courage, she adds, “One of my people is coming in to take a look.”

Anthea’s frown grows more pronounced. Of all the secrets that Molly has, this one causes the most tension. Anthea’s boss trusts her, to an extent, but he loathes the loyalty with which she protects her ghosts’ identities. He thinks she’s naïve, that anyone can tell her anything and she’ll pass it on as the truth. She tries not to let it bother her. Even the great Mycroft Holmes will pause an investigation when he comes across a very detailed warning from his (dead) little brother.

“We can share our findings with you,” Anthea says stiffly. “There’s no need for your people to come here.”

“I think they’d like to take a look themselves,” Molly says. For all that she calls them her ghosts, they’re the ones who run the show. She’s just the messenger, doing her best to keep them all alive and (relatively) happy. “I’ll pass on whatever they tell me.”

“Thank you,” Anthea says bitingly. “I’ll keep in touch.”

“Okay!” Molly calls after her.

The rest of the day passes normally. One of Greg’s colleagues, a young woman named Kate, stops by to ask a couple other questions about the Wilsham case, but most of Molly’s time is spent in routine paperwork. It’s not exciting, but it takes enough of her attention that she doesn’t even realize she has a visitor until he speaks. Then again, he’s hardly a regular visitor.

“You spelled Wilsham wrong,” he says, and it’s a testament to how distracted she is that she doesn’t immediately scream. Even when he was alive, he had the power to shock her out of whatever she was doing. 

She rises to her feet slowly, her eyes fixed on him. It’s wrong, all wrong, so wrong, to see him standing in her lab again, looking perfectly at home. He’s lost that ridiculous (wonderful) coat and his gorgeous hair’s been cut short and he’s – good god, how is that even possible? – grown even thinner. He still holds himself arrogantly, but there’s a look in his eyes that she recognizes. It’s the look she sees as she hands people their loved one’s autopsy report. It’s the look that’s almost always in John’s eyes these days. It’s the look of a man who has been pushed to his limit and beyond, who has seen things no one should ever have to see and done things no one should ever have to do. It’s the look of a man who’s desperately trying to pretend that everything’s okay when nothing is.

“Sherlock,” she breathes. “You shouldn’t be here. What if someone sees you? The police have been in and out all day!”

“And Mycroft’s people,” he says, sneering a little. She doesn’t ask how he knows. “I told you I was coming.”

“I assumed you meant to my flat,” Molly says. Her heart aches a little – how in the world has she missed his sneering? She’s talked to him, of course, but mainly through texts. His phone number keeps changing, so each time he contacts her they have to go through the arduous process of proving that it’s really him. Most of the texts are business related, messages that she’s to pass on to Mycroft. Every once and a while, though, he texts her out of the blue for no discernible purpose. When that happens, she lets herself blab at him, telling him everything that’s been happening. He’s never said anything about it, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a dead man has to be lonely.

“Where’s the body?” he asks, slipping on a pair of latex gloves as though it were any other case. 

“Who is he?” Molly asks as she pulls the body out. “Anthea says he was one of theirs?”

“He was a brigadier in the army,” he says.

“But why was he important?” she asks. “Everyone’s been asking about him.”

“Who?” he asks, glancing up at her.

“Um, well, Mycroft’s people,” she says. He waves an impatient hand. “Uh, Lestrade? And one of his… I don’t know exactly, but I think she works with him.”

“Name?” He’s not looking at her anymore, and she feels that old pang of relief and disappointment. It’s such a familiar feeling she almost laughs.

“Kate something,” she says, noting with absent pride how steady her voice is. “Is it important?”

“It might be,” he says. He’s poking at the corpse now, his fingers ghosting over the bullet hole.

“Is it one of his people, then?” she asks when she can’t stand the silence a moment longer. Two years – two years! – she’s waited and watched and done her part, never knowing where he was or what he was doing, without any idea if he was even alive, and now he’s here, right in front of her, and, well, she just thought it would be different somehow. That he would notice her more, or something. I saved your life, a part of her wants to scream at him, but that’s not really true, is it? She just faked the autopsy and provided the decoy corpse. And despite everything, despite all the stress and the lying and how insanely infuriating he still is, if she had the chance she’d do it the same way all over again. Because at the end of the day, it’s still him. He’s here, and he’s alive, and so are John and Greg and Mrs. Hudson. They’re alive, and she’s part of the reason why, and that’s worth everything else.

“Not Wilsham,” he says absently. “The sniper.”

“One of the three?” she asks.

He looks at her then, as though surprised to remember that he told her about the three snipers. “I believe so,” he says. She strangely proud of the fact that he’s talking to her like this, explaining things. She supposes that he got into the habit with John and never really grew out of it. She wonders who he talked at while he was away. ”If it’s who I think it is, he was very close to the top of the organization. He would have been Moriarty’s natural successor, but he was still new enough when he died that no one would accept that. No one knows him, no one trusts him, but they all agree on one thing – he never leaves a job unfinished.”

“And you’re an unfinished job,” Molly says. Terrific. Nice to know there’s a bloodthirsty sniper coming after a man who’s going to be staying in her flat. “Does he know you’re alive?”

He shakes his head. “He may suspect. He certainly knows that some of us are going after what’s left of them. It’s hard to miss when so many have gone missing.” The feral look in his eyes is the closest to happy she’s seen him since he died. It scares her, a little. He’s always been otherworldly and intimidating, but after two years of pretending to be dead, with very minimal contact with the living world – it’s as if he’s drawn completely into himself, lost all the grounded humanity that John brought into his life all those years ago. She can see the bags under his eyes and even she knows him well enough to see the toll that the last two years have taken on him.

“Are you going to kill him?” she asks. The moment the words are out of her mouth she hates them. “No no, actually, don’t tell me.” She doesn’t want to think of him as a killer. “Plausible deniability and all.”

“Has anyone suspected your role?” he asks, straightening.  
   
“I don’t think so,” she says. “I mean, I haven’t seen anything.”

“And, er, the woman?” he asks.

“She suspects,” Molly admits, a little uncertain. Even with those who are helping them, the cardinal rule stands: no one can know he’s alive. But the woman is smart, very smart, and very close to the center of their operation. Of course she suspects that this “friend” of Molly’s is him. “I’ve done my best to throw her off, but…”

“It’s fine,” he says brusquely. He hesitates for a moment before asking, with forced casualness, “How has John been?”

She’s been expecting the question, but it doesn’t make it any easier to answer. How has John been? “He’s alive,” she says. More alive than you, she thinks, but nowhere near the man he was. But he’s breathing. Some days he even laughs. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it? “I think he’s doing okay.” Most of her information comes from Greg these days. It’s hard, being around them. All she can see is how much she’s cost them.

Sherlock nods sharply and turns back to the body. If she knows him, he won’t leave London without stopping by John’s flat. It’s horrible of her, but she hopes he’ll have the self restraint not to reveal himself. The sooner this whole thing is over the better, of course, but at this point it would just endanger them both. Until it is absolutely certain that Moriarty’s entire network has been disabled, she’ll hope that they stay apart. She won’t – she can’t let all of this work fall apart just for a moment’s happiness. 

“Are you done here?” she asks.

“You can go,” he says, his back still to her. “I’m going to be a while.”

And still she hesitates, unwilling to let him out of her sight. It’s irrational – he’s been on his own for two years and god knows how many more before she met him, he’s completely capable of taking care of himself. But there’s always been just a little bit of magic about him and she’s slightly scared that he’ll vanish in a puff of smoke the moment she turns her back. It would be dramatic and temperamental and just like him. On the other hand, at the moment his nose is buried in the autopsy report and he’ll be there for another three hours, and it’s Friday, it’s been a long week, and she really does just want to go home.

“Will you be able to get into the house?” she asks. It’s a stupid question – of course he can break into the house, he’s Sherlock Holmes – really, she ought to be glad he remembered to tell her he was coming at all. 

“Yes,” he says absently. When she still doesn’t move, he turns around (with only a small sigh) and looks at her, really looks at her. “Go home, Molly,” he says, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t melt a little at the sound of her name in his voice. “I’ll be fine.”

She nods and flees. Later, she’ll wonder why she didn’t just stay, if it would have mattered. She’ll remember a time, those first few years after she met him, when she wondered each morning if Sherlock would be next on her table. She’ll wonder if, after all that time and effort, the struggle and the loss and the waiting, if maybe they really will fail. She’ll wonder if she could have done more, if anyone could have done more. She’ll decide that the answer is no. After all, this is Sherlock Holmes she’s talking about.


	2. Chapter 2

Molly’s at home in her PJs, with her hair thrown up in the messiest of buns, when the doorbell rings. Her hands freeze just as she’s reaching for the last plate in the dishwasher, and it almost slips from her hands. She manages to catch it just in time.

Maybe she’s just being paranoid, but who goes around visiting people at eleven o’clock at night? And Sherlock wouldn’t ring the doorbell, would he? He’s never had any compunction about just barging in. But then again, it’s been two years. Maybe he’s changed. Her mind instantly rebels against the idea, but who else could it be? An assassin definitely wouldn’t knock. Unbidden, Jim’s face rises in her mind. He would knock, she thinks, feeling slightly sick. It would be just like him, wouldn’t it, to appear on her doorstep with that horrible fake smile that (she can barely stand to admit it, even to herself, even after all these years) she fell just a little bit in love with. She supposes she must have a thing for lost causes and psychopaths (or maybe just high-functioning sociopaths).

But Jim is dead. He’s definitely, definitely dead. She did the autopsy herself, didn’t she? And it was him. Sherlock was absolutely certain. Then again, the entire world is absolutely certain Sherlock’s dead.

Before she can drive herself completely insane, she goes to answer the door. It’s probably just a neighbor or something, and it would be rude to keep them waiting when she’s so obviously home. And if it is an assassin, well, they’ll hardly wait for her.

To say she’s surprised to see Greg, in his full Detective Inspector splendor, with Sally Donavan at his side and another couple of officers behind him, is an understatement. For one wild moment she’s terrified that they’re here to arrest her for autopsy forgery, but they look just as surprised to see her.

“Molly,” Greg says. There’s blood on his uniform, she notices, feeling a little sick. “Sorry to disturb you.”

“It’s fine,” she says, drawing her bathrobe tighter around her. “What’s going on?”

“There’s been a shooting,” he says grimly. “A man shot one of our officers. We have him in custody, but we don’t know who he is yet. We traced him here.”

“Here?” It’s stupid, really, but her first thought is that there must have been a mistake. A killer, traced back to her flat? Someone must have broken in and left a false trail, or something. A moment later she realizes that of course someone broke in and left a trail. Somehow, Sherlock must have anticipated this. He must have wanted them to come to her. Under any other circumstances, she’d be honored, but if it was him, then that means he’s been arrested, and she doesn’t even want to think about what that means.

“Yes,” Greg says, pulling out a photograph. “Do you recognize him?”

Molly’s heart is pounding as she takes the picture. It’s him, all right, looking almost exactly as she saw him not three hours earlier. Is it possible that Greg arrested him without recognizing him? She shakes her head, hoping that none of her shock shows. “I know him as well as you do,” she manages to say. It isn’t even a lie.

“Do you mind if we take a look around?” Greg asks. “It was definitely this flat that he was seen coming out of.”

“Of course,” Molly says, smiling nervously and hoping with all her heart that Sherlock didn’t leave any incriminating evidence lying around. “What happened?” she asks Greg as his team moves in. “Who did he shoot?”

“Kate Martin,” Greg says, his voice hard. Molly stiffens slightly, remembering the officer she had mentioned to Sherlock, the one who had been interested in Wilsham. “One of my best.”

“When did this happen?” Molly asks. In three hours, how had he figured out who she was and gone after her? At least the short time explained why he had gotten so sloppy. A thought darts through her mind: she might just have to kill him herself when all this is done.

“Just about an hour ago,” Greg says. “Kate and Sally room together, but Sally had to stay late to help me with some paperwork. She opened the door when she got home just in time to see the bloke shoot Kate.”

“That’s horrible,” Molly says. Is she supposed to believe that Sherlock did this? The man who managed to outwit Moriarty, the man who faked his own death? What on earth could have possessed him to do such a thing? Why hadn’t he been more careful? “Is she alive?”

“Just barely,” Greg says. The angry fire burning in his eyes mirrors the look she saw in Sherlock’s. “She’s in urgent care now.”

“Oh my god,” Molly says. She feels a little sick to her stomach. He killed a woman. She’s not stupid. She knows that really, all the nice euphemistic stories she tells herself about what he’s been doing for the last two years just boil down to a vengeful murdering spree. But knowing that in the abstract and seeing Greg’s face as he worries about his friend are two very different things. It was smart of her to get close to him, she thinks. It’ll make breaking the truth just that much harder. God, what has she come to, that that’s what she’s thinking in a time like this?

A minute or two later, Donovan emerge from her rooms. “We’re still looking, but the lock on the window’s been broken,” she says. “There’s a ledge that he could have stood on and ivy to climb up, just like the kid said.”

“What kid?” Molly asks.

“One on the street,” Donovan says. “He saw him this afternoon.” One of the homeless network, Molly assumes, blessing them from the bottom of her heart. 

“Were you showing people his photo?” Molly asks before she can consider the wisdom of asking such an odd question.

“Yeah,” Greg says. “That’s how we tracked him here.”

She forces a bit of a smile and nods, but inside her mind is whirling. They showed random people on the street that photo. if Kate wasn’t the only member of Moriarty’s organization in London…

“Excuse me,” she says. “I’ve got to go make a phone call really quick. I’ll be back in a moment.” They nod, and she ducks into her kitchen.

“Hello?” Anthea’s voice is cool and professional, sounding exactly like every other secretary on the planet.

“Hi,” Molly says, fighting to keep her tone casual in case anyone is listening in. “It’s Molly. Um, I was wondering, do you remember that project we were talking about? The one with three people?”

“The protection for Doctor Watson, Inspector Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson?” Anthea says. “Yes, of course.”

“Can we start it a bit early?” Molly asks.

“I don’t think you ever gave me a start date,” Anthea says.

“I need it now,” Molly says. “Does that work?”

“I can talk to Mr. Holmes about it,” Anthea says. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange.”

“Thank you,” Molly says, her relief palpable. If she can be certain that they’re safe, she can concentrate on the rest of the mess.

“Why is this suddenly necessary?” Anthea asks. Molly sighs.

“Someone messed up,” she says, praying that Anthea won’t ask her who. The gods, of course, aren’t listening.

“One of your people?” Anthea says, a trace of smugness coloring her professional voice.

“Yes,” Molly says shortly. The phrase “your people” has reminded her that Sherlock’s not the only ghost she can mine for information. “I’ve got to go, but thanks again.”

“Mr. Holmes is betting quite a lot on you,” Anthea say just before she hangs up. “Don’t make him regret it.” 

“Well, I think we’re done here,” Greg says when Molly rejoins them.

“Any luck?” she asks. They shake their heads.

“He seems to have come in and out through the window,” Donovan tells her. “Have you noticed anything missing?”

“No,” Molly says. “I mean, all the big stuff’s here.”

“Keep an eye out,” Greg recommends. “He had to have stopped here for a reason.”

“The kid on the street seemed to think he was aiming for this flat specifically,” Donovan says. “You’re sure you don’t recognize him?”

Molly glances down at the photo again, thinking fast. She has to see Sherlock. She can’t do anything until she knows who this Kate person is, and he’s – he’s not the only one who can tell her that, but he’s the safest bet. “I can’t be certain,” she says carefully. “I – is there any way I could see him? In person?”

Greg shrugs. “I don’t see why not. We have him in custody.”

“Great,” she says, hoping her relief isn’t too obvious. “Just give me a minute to get changed?”

“You want to come in tonight?” he asks. 

For a moment she hesitates, caught between blowing her cover and getting the information she needs. “If you don’t mind,” she finally says. 

“Fine by me,” he says.

She smiles and ducks into her bedroom. “I’ll only be a second.”

As she heads for her closet, Molly pulls out her phone. She only hesitates an instant before dialing the number. Normally she’s the one receiving these calls, not the other way around. There are very good reasons for that, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and so she dials.

“Doctor Hooper.” The woman’s voice is silken, but she doesn’t sound pleased. “Now isn’t really a good time.”

“Irene,” Molly says, just glad she picked up. “It’s important.”

“How important?” Her voice is hushed, and Molly can hear someone else talking in the background. 

“Very,” she says. “Who’s Kate Martin?”

There’s a moment of silence that’s just a little too long before Irene says, “I don’t know. Why?”

“She’s been shot,” Molly says. “She’s got to be one of yours. A sniper, maybe?”

“I’ll look into it,” Irene promises. Molly is already regretting calling her. She knows that Irene can only be trusted to a certain extent, that there’s a reason she knows so much about Moriarty’s organization. She scares Molly, a little. In a lot of ways, she’s the woman Molly always sort of wanted to be: confident, mysterious, sexy. She’s not afraid of anything, it seems, except maybe Mycroft Holmes. Then again, Molly hasn’t met a single soul who’s not afraid of him. Even Sherlock listened to him sometimes.

Now, though, the problem isn’t Irene. It’s Molly. She’s never been able to tell when people are lying. She’s gullible, so gullible – it’s part of the reason she’s such a bad liar. Her family always laughed at her a little because of it, but it never really mattered before. But with Irene, it matters. Because if she’s lying about this, if she does know who this Kate Martin person is… well, Molly’s head is going to be the first to roll, but it won’t be the last.

But despite being aware of her less-than-impressive deductive skills, Molly feels like she can trust Irene. After all, they’ve been working together for the last two years, and everything Irene told her was true. She’s had plenty of time and plenty of chances to betray them. Why would she wait until now to strike? And, well, she’s never been anything but nice to Molly. She certainly treats her with more respect than Sherlock ever did.

“There’s one other thing,” she says before she can think better of it. “There’s um, sort of a lot going on over here right now. You may want to lie a little low for a bit.”

“Talking with Big Brother?” Irene sounds completely unperturbed, even amused. “I’d say to give him my love, but it’s so convenient, having him think I’m dead.” Perhaps sensing Molly’s agitation, she adds, “You’re a darling to worry, but I can take care of myself.”

“All right,” Molly says reluctantly. She doesn’t have the details (she suspects they’re highly classified), but you’d have to be blind not to notice that there’s some complicated history between Irene and the Holmes brothers. Sherlock told her he saved Irene’s life once, and she suspects that’s part of the reason Irene’s helping them. But she’s not stupid enough to believe Irene’s actions are purely altruistic. She knows that Irene’s counting on using her assistance to convince Mycroft to pardon her. Or rather, Irene’s counting on Sherlock convincing Mycroft to pardon her.

Her mind flashes back to the night Irene came into her life. She appeared at the morgue out of the blue one day, asking for the pathologist who had done the autopsies on Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes. When Molly said that that was her, Irene had inundated her with questions.

“I knew both of them,” she had said, “and I know how they thought. At least one of them had to have had a backup plan.”

That night, Molly had texted Sherlock in a panic, initiating conversation for the first time. She had been terrified nearly out of her wits. After Sherlock had left London about a week earlier, she had thought was done with the whole operation. He hadn’t been too happy either, but once it had become clear that Irene wasn’t going away, he had told Molly what to say to get her to help them. Ever since then, Molly’s been running between the two of them and Mycroft, desperately trying to keep them all from finding out about each other. With Sherlock’s cover so close to being blown, the last thing she needs is Mycroft finding out about Irene. She wouldn’t put it past him to put her in a torture chamber, or something, and then where would they be?

It only takes her a moment after she hangs up to get changed and meet Greg downstairs. The drive to the Yard is quiet; Molly’s thoughts, at least, are absorbing. Unfortunately, they’re also infuriatingly useless. She keeps going around and around in circles. The only thing that is clear is that she has to talk to Sherlock. He’ll know what to do, he’ll have a plan. He always does. Maybe this Kate was the last threat, and he can come home now. The thought makes her breath catch in her throat.

She thinks about Irene, and hopes she stays safe, and tries to hide from the fact that she could be a traitor. She glances at Greg, sitting next to her in the car, and thinks about all the pain she’s put him though and how much more she might have to inflict before the night is over. She goes through everything that’s happened and wonders if it could have ended any other way. She dwells on alternative paths, but every one of them, it seems, ends in a funeral: Sherlock’s, John’s, Greg’s, Mrs. Hudson’s, her own. To be fair, the reality had a funeral too, but that wasn’t the end. She tries to put herself in the others’ shoes, to imagine going to Sherlock’s funeral without knowing the truth. A thought steals into her head: after this night’s work, she may have to go to a real funeral for him. She shoves it away.

Try as she might, she can’t find an ending that’s any better than this one. Yes, it’s horrible, and yes, it’s painful, and yes, everyone is going to be (rightly) furious that they were lied to. But everyone’s alive, aren’t they? And someday – it’ll be sooner rather than later now, she thinks (hopes prays doesn’t-dare-seriously-consider-it) – they’ll be together again. What more can she ask for? It’s certainly better than the alternative.

By the time they arrive at the station, Molly’s worked herself up to a state of considerable anxiety. Greg’s not going to let her see Sherlock alone, but how are they supposed to talk with him in the room? But she gets out of the car when it stops and thanks Greg (her voice only trembling a very little) with a smile when he opens the door to the station.

For all her years of working with the Yard, she’s never been inside before. They usually come to her – corpses are a little hard to move around. Their headquarters are big and spacious. There are a surprising amount of people there for the time of night. One man, struggling to put on his coat while juggling a huge pile of papers, nods at Greg on his way out the door. “Big case?” he asks.

“Kate’s,” Greg replies. The other man’s smile instantly clouds over.

“Any luck with the prisoner?” he asks. “I didn’t always get along with Kate, but she was one of ours.”

“She’s not dead yet,” Greg says determinedly, and it takes Molly a moment to realize that he’s still hoping she’ll recover. The woman’s already dead to her – if she’s seen Sherlock, the only way she’ll live is if Mycroft decides to torture her, or whatever it is he does when he takes people into custody.

“Well, good luck,” the other man says.

Greg leads Molly through the building with obvious familiarity, and she takes the opportunity to study him. He looks tired and grim, but there’s a ferocity there too. She feels a rush of affection for him, for his aliveness. The feeling takes her a bit by surprise. He’s still the same man he was when she met him, the one who listened when a scrawny, high kid off the street explained the numerous ways in which he was an idiot, the one who took that kid and made him Sherlock Holmes. The mess with Moriarty and the loss of Sherlock hurt him, yes, and left their mark, but they haven’t broken him yet. (she doesn’t let herself wonder if she’ll be the one to break him)

“He’s in here,” Greg says, drawing to a stop outside a metal door. Down the hall, a guard patrols the area. There’s a keypad by the door, and Greg types in a code before putting a key in the lock.

The room is windowless, lit by a single fluorescent bulb. Sherlock sits on an unpadded chair in the middle of the room, his head bowed over folded hands. It’s a familiar site despite the setting, right down to his total stillness as they enter.

“Get up,” Greg tells him sharply. Sherlock does, slowly, the motion of his body so foreign that for a moment Molly’s worried that he’s been injured. But his gaze is sharp as he meets her eyes and she can’t see any wound. He’s slumping, all his sharp lines blurring, and it makes him look like a totally different man. That’s the point, she realizes. It’s not just luck that Greg hasn’t recognized him – he’s doing everything he can to disguise himself. He knows when she figures it out, judging by the smirk in his eyes, the show off. 

“Well?” Greg asks her. “Do you recognize him?” A small flicker of surprise crosses Sherlock’s face.

“I can’t say,” Molly says, feeling horribly uncertain. What is she supposed to do? She’s seen him, it’s him, and it’s totally unhelpful. “Is it safe?” she asks, holding Sherlock’s gaze. “Bringing people in to see him, is it safe?”

“There’s loads of security,” Greg says, but he could have remained silent for all the attention Molly pays him. Sherlock nods his head, just ever so slightly, and a wave of relief floods her. If it’s safe to bring others in, things can’t be too bad.

Greg’s saying something else, but Molly talks over him. “I think I might know someone who could identify him,” she says. “Could I bring them in?”

Sherlock’s eyes widen, just a little, and for a moment she’s afraid she misinterpreted him. Greg’s talking, asking if she knows him, why she can’t just say who he is, on and on, but Molly’s focus is on Sherlock’s hand. Slowly, and just subtly enough that Greg can’t see, he draws a J in the air, and then a W. Of course, she thinks.

“I can’t be entirely sure,” she tells Greg, a smile forcing its way onto her face. “But I know someone who will be.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Yes, of course,” Greg says. “Whenever you get off is fine. I’ll be here. And really, John, I appreciate it.” He hangs up with a sigh and turns to Molly. “It’ll be at least an hour – he’s working tonight.”

“Do you mind if I stay?” she asks. There’s no logical reason for her to be there, but she really can’t be bothered to come up with an excuse. And if anyone thinks she’s going home now, well, they’re crazy.

“If you like,” Greg says, dropping into the chair next to her.

“Are you okay?” she asks him, because she can’t ask Sherlock. He shrugs.

“Been better. It’s been a hell of a day.”

“I’m sorry about your friend,” she offers. And she is, when she puts it that way. She’s sorry that the shooting happened, she’s sorry the victim was one of his friends. She’s sorry Sherlock was arrested for it. But she can’t quite be sorry that another of Moriarty’s agents has been taken out. It’s one less person who can kill those she cares about.

“She’s not my friend,” he says. “Kate, she’s… complicated. Absolutely brilliant, but there’s always just been something about her, you know? Something a little strange.”

“In what way?” Molly asks, thirsty for any and all knowledge about this mysterious woman.

“Just sort of… off. She’s just a little too perfect sometimes. No one’s that good and that nice.” 

“Maybe you were just around Sherlock for too long,” Molly offers, then winces internally. The last thing she needs is for him to have Sherlock on the mind. But he just laughs.

“Yeah, that’s what Sally said. Though she was hardly one to talk. She and Kate always sort of rubbed each other the wrong way.”

“I thought you said they roomed together,” she says, confused.

“Yeah,” he says with a little ironic laugh. “I still don’t know how they survived this long. Kate was brought in to monitor us, you know, after everything with Sherlock. Sally resented that.”

“She’s the one who brought the charges against him,” Molly points out. It would have made sense for Moriarty to have someone at Scotland Yard. If Kate had started working there around the time of Sherlock’s death… it’s too much speculation. She needs facts, evidence, proof of some sort. It doesn’t even have to be the type that would stand up in court, though of course that would be helpful in getting Sherlock free. But even the smallest fact would save her a lot of mental anguish.

“She didn’t think she’d ever be the one under investigation,” Greg says. “It actually probably saved our team, Kate coming in when she did. Gave us a common enemy, right up until the point that we realized she was on our side. But even then – I dunno. She was always sort of the outsider.”

“Right,” she says. The knowledge that they weren’t close, that he won’t be (too) emotionally devastated by her death, is comforting beyond belief. “Um, do you know who her other friends were? I mean,” she hurries to add, “is there anyone else who might be able to identify the prisoner?”

Greg shakes his head. “Just John.”

“John?” she repeats. John.

“Yeah,” he says, giving her a bit of a strange look. “That’s why you want him to come in, right?”

“Right,” she says. “Of course. But, um, how did they become friends? I never heard the story.”

“I introduced them,” he says. “Kate was complaining about the lack of a veteran’s network – she was in the army, you know – and John was lonely, so they hit it off.”

“That was nice of you,” she says. Working off the premise that Kate is one of Moriarty’s people and that her goal was to stay close to the targets, she couldn’t have done a better job. A friend of John’s. Well, that’s going to complicate things, she thinks. How on earth is she supposed to explain to him that the man who shot his friend is his (dead) best friend who by the way is still alive, oh and that first friend probably has been trying to murder you for the past two years? Or maybe Sherlock just made a mistake, maybe Kate Martin is just a perfectly nice and innocent young woman. But Molly’s faith in him is stubborn. At the very least, she still needs more bloody information.

Right on cue, her phone rings. She jumps on it. “Hello?”

“It turns out that you have very good instincts, Doctor Hooper,” Irene says on the other end. “Better than mine, in this case.”

“What happened?” Molly asks, dread flooding her body.

“I ran into a friend of yours,” Irene says on the other end. “I think she calls herself Anthea?”

Molly’s heart sinks. For two long years, Irene’s identity has been one of her biggest secrets, second only to Sherlock’s. She has lied to practically everyone she knows in order to keep them safe. Are both her efforts going to fall apart in one night? “What have you told her?”

“The truth,” Irene says. “She doesn’t believe me, of course. I suggested we call you.”

“She doesn’t trust me very much either,” Molly says. “But, I mean, I’ll talk to her.” It’s not like she has much of a choice. She’ll tell the truth, that’s all. Or, at least, most of it. 

“Doctor Hooper.” Anthea’s voice is cold and sharp. “Am I to believe that this woman is the one who has been providing the information you’ve given me?”

“Some of it,” Molly says, fighting to keep her tone level. Suddenly, lying to Anthea about Sherlock seems both a lot more important and a lot more manageable. Because really, what’s the worst she can do? Have her arrested? Sherlock’s already in prison. Maybe if she joins him, they’ll actually be able to talk. It’s not like Anthea’s ever told Molly anything about what she does – for crying out loud, Molly doesn’t even know her real name! But because she works for Mycroft Holmes, they’re automatically the good guys, while the rest of them have had to work themselves to the bone to prove they’re trustworthy. And still, still, Anthea is doubting her. Well, she may have Irene, but Molly will be damned if she’ll give up Sherlock.

And she won’t give them Irene without a fight, either. Maybe she worked on the wrong side in the past, but some of Molly’s most valuable information has come from Irene. Anthea may think that Irene can’t be trusted with anything, but Molly knows better. There is one thing that Irene Adler can always be trusted to do, and that is whatever is most advantageous to her. And in this case, what does she stand to gain from betraying them? Revenge? She’s spent the last two years hiding from Mycroft’s people. She knows how good they are. If she betrays Sherlock too – well, the combined wrath of the Holmes brothers is a terrifying thing.

“If it makes it any better,” she says, “I wasn’t the one who decided to let her help.”

“Who was, then?” Anthea demands.

Molly sighs. “I can’t tell you.”

“Doctor Hooper,” Anthea says sharply. “Despite what you might think, this is not a game. There are lives at stake here.”

“I’m aware,” Molly says, a little of her agitation creeping into her voice despite her best efforts. 

“Then give me the information I need and let me protect them,” Anthea says. Her tone brooks no argument. 

“I just need time,” Molly pleads. “Not long – just until John Watson gets here.”

“What does Doctor Watson have to do with any of this?” Anthea asks. She doesn’t bother asking where “here” is – knowing her, she probably knows Molly’s exact location down to a centimeter.

“It’s complicated,” Molly says. “Please don’t look into it, not yet. He just has to identify someone, that’s all.”

“If you think I’m going to allow Doctor Watson anywhere on your information after this –“ Anthea starts.

“Why on earth would I want to hurt John?” Molly has to ask. “I’m the one who told you to increase his security!”

“I don’t believe you’ve been acting maliciously,” Anthea allows. “Miss Adler can be quite persuasive; I don’t blame you for falling for her lies. But,” she says, raising her voice over Molly’s protests, “they are most certainly lies. Irene Adler is one of the most dangerous people you’ll ever meet, Doctor Hooper.”

“I dated Jim Moriarty,” Molly points out. “I think I can handle Irene.”

“Who do you think gave Moriarty his greatest weapon?” Anthea asks.

“Genetics?” Molly guesses. “I mean, you don’t give people brains.”

“You knew Sherlock,” Anthea says. “Do you think he would have been able to keep all those people organized? Moriarty was a madman – a genius, yes, but an insane one. The day to day business was all handled by Irene Adler’s girlfriend.”

A thought darts through Molly’s mind, a thought that at first seems utterly preposterous but that could explain so much. “Was she a sniper, this woman?” she asks.

“Yes,” Anthea says. “Colonel Sabrina Moran, dishonorably discharged from the army six years ago.”

“Have you caught her?” Molly asks.

“No,” Anthea says. “I suspect we now know why.”

“Irene wouldn’t,” Molly says automatically, though of course she has no way of knowing. Maybe Irene has been protecting her girlfriend this entire time. But there’s a bigger picture here. If Moriarty’s second-in-command had wanted a safe place to hide where she could still keep an eye on her targets, where better could she have placed herself than at Scotland Yard? It was perfect. And if Sherlock had tracked her there, would he have bothered to discover that she had changed her name and was now one of John’s friends? It would be just like him to rush off after her without a second thought.

And really, there are a thousand reasons Irene could have gone after Moran. Molly had been the one to bring the case to her attention, after all. Maybe the two had a falling out of some sort, and Irene is looking for revenge. Or maybe (as painful as it is to even consider) Anthea is right, and Irene was coming to protect her. Maybe she is a traitor. How is Molly supposed to tell?

But the fact remains that Sherlock trusts her, and while Molly doesn’t trust him with everything (simple things, like keeping himself alive and sane, are best entrusted to other people, especially if those other people happen to be named John Watson) she trusts him with this. And there’s no real proof that Irene’s betrayed them, not yet, so when Anthea says, “There is nothing Miss Adler wouldn’t do,” Molly can’t help herself.

“She has powerful people behind her,” she says. “People on our side, ones your boss won’t want working against him.” Not that Sherlock didn’t work against Mycroft before he died – in fact, they’ve probably worked more together in the past couple of years than in the previous three decades – but if the two brothers really went head to head, it would be a battle worth watching. 

“Are you threatening us, Doctor Hooper?” Anthea’s voice is cold as ice. 

“Are you threatening my friends?” Molly counters, sounding far braver than she feels. “Look, just don’t hurt her, please. I can explain everything, I just need a little time.” Over her dead body will Anthea find out about Sherlock before John does.

“You may have one hour,” Anthea says. “If you cannot prove her innocent by then, we will have to proceed according to standard procedure.” She thinks she knows that the task she’s given Molly is impossible and, to be fair, it sort of is. Irene is guilty, totally and completely guilty of everything Anthea suspects her of. The work she’s done for them doesn’t counteract that. Molly knows better than to try to prove her completely innocent, but that doesn’t mean she can’t try to help. Because yeah, maybe Irene has done some horrible things, but Molly can name half a dozen of Moriarty’s agents off the top of her head that they never would have caught without Irene.

“Thank you,” she says to Anthea, though she would rather scream at her. She hangs out and lets out a long breath.

“Is everything okay?” Greg asks. His eyes are soft with concern as he looks at her, and she has to turn away because after tonight, he’s never going to look at her again like that. None of them are ever going to trust her ever again. He shouldn’t even trust her now, not really. When was the last time she looked at him and didn’t lie? It’s become so routine now that she barely even notices the way she smoothes out her life so that it looks normal to the outside world. But the thing is, that outside world shouldn’t include Greg. He deserves to know what’s going on. So do John, and Mycroft, and Mrs. Hudson. They’ve been hurting, these last two years, and all along she’s had the ability to dull that pain. She knows why she hasn’t, knows that there are very good reasons why she’s had to lie, but it’s still not fair, to them or to her. They’ll hate her, after this, and she won’t even be able to blame them. All she can do is pray that they eventually forgive Sherlock. She doesn’t want all of this to be for nothing.

“What time did John say he gets off?” she asks instead of answering. 

Greg glances at his watch. “About an hour from now.”

Molly allows herself one more moment of panic before telling herself firmly to get a grip. “Right,” she says, pulling her phone back out. “What’s his phone number?”

Greg gives it to her reluctantly, protesting that they’ve already disturbed John enough. She almost laughs, because John’s about to be far more disturbed. She must look quite desperate, though, because he sighs and just tells her the number.

“Hi,” she says, a little breathless, when he picks up. “It’s Molly.”

“Hi,” he says, somewhat surprised. “Are you with Greg?”

“Yes,” she says.

“He told me you were helping him with Kate’s case,” he says. “I’m coming over when my shift’s done.”

“About that,” she says. “Could you come now?”

“I’ve got work,” he says, and for a moment Molly’s thrown back to a day, oh, it must have been four years ago now, because John had just moved in with Sherlock and they were still getting their feet under them. They had been in her morgue, looking at some dead body or another, when John up and announced he had to go. Sherlock, who had been monologuing at him for the past half hour, wasn’t very pleased.

“I’ve got work,” John had protested even as he allowed Sherlock to drag him back towards the body.

“Call in sick,” Sherlock had suggested.

“Sherlock –“ John had turned to Molly then, all exasperation. She had shrugged, making both her sympathy and helplessness clear. “It’s not as though I’m doing anything here.”

“I need you,” Sherlock had said. His back had been to John and Molly, his voice clear and emotionless, but neither of them mistook the admission for anything less than astronomical. I need you, Sherlock had said, and so John had called in and said he wouldn’t make work that day. His boss had been furious, but Sherlock had snuck a small smile at him and though John had spent the rest of the day complaining, he had returned that smile.

“The man who’s been arrested,” Molly starts, then pauses because how on earth is she supposed to explain this?

“The one who shot Kate?” John says. The anger in his voice is clear. “Look, I want to see this bloke incarcerated as much as you do, but –“

“I don’t want to see him incarcerated,” she blurts out, feeling Greg tense beside her and thinking, oh, god, I am so not ready for this. “I’m trying to get him free.” He pauses.

“He shot my friend,” he says.

He is your friend! she wants to scream, but you can’t tell someone that sort of news over the phone. “It’s complicated,” she says. “Really, really complicated. But he’s a good man, I’d bet my life on it.”

“So why aren’t you identifying him?” John asks, and she can see Greg standing there with the same question in his eyes.

“Because it wouldn’t be fair to you,” she finally says. “It’s got to be you, John, he won’t let it be anyone else.”

“Oh, so now a would-be murderer is the one dictating the terms of his own imprisonment?” John says. “Brilliant.”

“You’re hardly one to talk about killing people,” Molly says before she can help herself. “Does the name Jefferson Hope ring any bells?”

They all freeze, all of them. Greg is staring at her like she’s crazy, and John’s silent on the other end. Molly knows she’s crossed some sort of line, but if it gets John here she can’t really find it in her to care.

“What about Jefferson Hope?” John asks after a long moment.

“Do you really want me to say it?” she asks. “I’m pretty sure Greg knows anyway, but I wouldn’t want for him to have to admit it and arrest you.”

“How could you know about that?” he asks, and she thinks she can hear the first notes of loathing creeping into his tone. How can she know about that, when the only person he ever talked to it about was Sherlock? Why did she get to know?

“The man we need you to identify told me,” she says.

“And how does he know?” John’s voice is too steady for comfort. It’s his soldier voice, his stiff-upper-lip voice. She has a feeling she’ll be hearing a lot of it over the next while.

“He saw it,” she says. It’s not a lie, it isn’t, so why is it so hard to say? “He’s a friend, I promise.”

“Who is he?” he asks. 

“He has to tell you himself,” she says. She won’t be the messenger, not on this. “Please, John.”

There’s a moment of silence in which she can almost hear the swear words running through his mind. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he finally says.

“Thank you,” she says, feeling faint with relief. Or maybe just faint with worry. This is happening. It’s actually happening. She thinks she might collapse.

“Can I ask you a question?” Greg says as she hangs up.

She sighs, but nods. It’s a miracle her peace has lasted this long.

“The man who shot Kate,” he says, “is he a good man?”

“Yes,” she says without thinking. It’s too late to deny she knows him now, too late to keep lying. She knows that, in a way, saying that he’s a good man is as much of a lie as saying he’s dead, but she’s sick of everyone assuming he’s selfish and friendless. He has friends – isn’t that sort of what got them into this mess in the first place? – and she thinks that faking your own death to save their lives is a pretty selfless thing to do. She’s always believed he’s a good man. Or at the very least, he’s always had the potential. John made him better, and Moriarty finished the job. Even Sally Donovan would have admitted he was an all right bloke if she had seen him in those first few days after his “death”. 

“Are you in danger?” Greg asks. She’s tempted to point out that he only asked if he could ask one question, but refrains. He deserves every answer she can give him.

“No,” she says. You’re the one in danger, she thinks. “Why would I be?”

“You’re protecting a man who just shot one of my officers,” he points out. “That’s a little out of character for you.”

“Not really,” she says with a bit of a laugh, and it’s a tremendous relief to be able to say it. “Actually, that seems to be pretty standard, these days.”

“Molly,” he says, and there’s a world of emotion wrapped up in her name. “What have you gotten yourself mixed up into?”

“He’s a friend,” she tries to explain. “He was in trouble, big trouble. I had to help.”

“What kind of trouble makes it okay to shoot an innocent police officer?” Greg wants to know.

She hesitates a moment before saying, “I’m not sure she was entirely innocent.”

He starts. “What do you mean? Kate’s a good person.”

“Then he wouldn’t have shot her,” she says definitively. 

“Why do you have so much faith in him?” Greg demands. “Who is he?”

“A friend,” she says.

“A murderer,” he says. “Molly, please.”

“I can’t,” she says. “I just can’t!” John has to be the first to know, there’s no other way it can work.

“I could arrest you, you know,” Greg says. His voice is cold but she can see the conflict raging in his eyes and she hates herself even more.

“Go ahead,” she says, holding out her hands. John is on his way, she’s done what she can for Irene; there’s nothing else for her to do for Sherlock. But she can still try to make this easier for Greg. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.” 

He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Good god, Molly, can you hear yourself? Your ‘friend’ just shot an innocent woman – we have no evidence that she was guilty of anything – you defend him, won’t tell me who he is, drag John out here in the middle of the night, won’t explain any of it, but if I want to arrest you -“

“I’m sorry,” she says, and then dammit, she’s crying. She’s always cried too easily, and it’s late and she’s tired and she’s been doing her best, but she was so stupid to think this would work, that she could put them through this heartbreak and that they would even consider forgiving her or Sherlock. “I’m so sorry,” she says, doing her best to shove the tears back into her eyes. A sort of laugh bubbles up out of her. “And you don’t even know the half of it.”

Greg’s panicking, of course Greg’s panicking, she’s sitting here in his office crying and lying and apologizing, but he takes her arm and leads her to a chair and sits down beside her. “Then tell me,” he says.

“I can’t,” she says again.

“What don’t I know the half of?” he asks.

“Everything,” she says. “I don’t even know how it all happened – it just had to be done and somehow I was the only one who could do it, and now it’s all falling apart and I don’t even know if you’re safe, Anthea doesn’t trust me, she could have pulled the security off you, and they still could be out there, and you were showing people his picture and someone could have seen it and recognized him, and he’s got to be going insane because god knows I am.”

“Anthea,” he says, and she can see him trying to remember where he knows the name from.

“Mycroft Holmes’ assistant,” she says. He looks at her, startled.

“This is Mycroft’s mess?” he says. “Why doesn’t he swoop down and clean it all up?”

“He doesn’t trust me,” she says. “It’s smart, of course, because I could be working for anyone. If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t told him anything either.”

“Why all the secrecy?” he asks, but it’s more of a rhetorical question at this point. “Who are you working for?” She just shakes her head. 

“John has to be the first to know,” she says stubbornly. It’s the only thought that she can get through her head, or at least the only one that she is allowed to vocalize.

He sighs. They’re at a stalemate, and she can’t see how to break it. She desperately wants to tell him something, anything, to make him trust her again. “It’s for you,” she says softly after a moment. “You, and John, and Mrs. Hudson. And for him, of course, but even that comes back to you three.”

“Me?” he says, stupefied.

“Yes,” she says. “That’s why I can’t tell you anything, if it were anyone else –“

“But why?” he asks. “What – who?”

Next to her, his mind is racing. Him, John, Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson. Molly. There’s only one thing that they have in common, only one person whom she could justify defending like this. He thinks about the prisoner in the next room, with his high cheekbones and bright eyes, and about Molly’s insistence that John be the first one to see him. The thought that steals into his head is so insane, so impossible – and yet, wasn’t that the wonder of it all? How impossible it was, back in the day? And wouldn’t it be just like him, with his twisted and perverted sense of humor, to be playing one last mind trick on them?

Before the thought could come to completion – not that he was considering it, not really, because after all, it was totally and completely 100% impossible and he didn’t know why he had even thought of it because it would imply all sorts of things about him and about Molly and about the prisoner, whom he was really going to have to get another look at soon in order to dispel this crazy notion from his mind – when the door opens. Beside him, Molly jumps. There’s a panicked look in her eyes that recedes, if only a little, when she sees John.

“Thank you for coming,” she says, attempting to smile. His face is drawn and pale under the fluorescent lights. He looks better than he had a year earlier, but in comparisons to the man Sherlock knew, he looks like a corpse. She lost her smile at the thought. Like a disease, she thinks. Everyone I touch turns into a ghost. Well, some of that is about to be fixed. Molly Hooper, necromancer. It has a nice ring to it.

“Of course,” he says, exchanging a look with Greg that screams What the hell is going on? Greg just wishes he had an answer to give him. “So, who’s this bloke, then?”

“That’s what I’m hoping you can tell me,” Greg says, leading them back to Sherlock cell. “None of the usual methods of identification work.”

“He’s a friend,” Molly says. She can’t really blame John for looking at her like she’s crazy, but she has to sigh anyway. “I know he’s done some things that are a bit not good” – something hardens in John’s eyes at the phrase – “but you’ve got to believe me, he has his reasons, and it hurt him as much as it hurt you.” She’s babbling now, making no sense and probably saying more than she could, but she can’t seem to make herself stop. “I know I shouldn’t have lied to you, but this was necessary to, and, well, you’re alive, so I’m really not all that sorry.” They’re both looking at her like she’s totally insane now, but she has to try to give them some context before they see Sherlock.

Her heart feels like it’s going to be out of her chest as she watches Greg draw John into the room. She doesn’t know where look: at John or Greg or Sherlock or – they’ve been building up to this moment for two long years and now it’s happening and she can’t think straight.

Sherlock shoots out of his chair the instant the door is open, and John, studying him closely and with no little bemusement, is assaulted by memories that he has spent two years oppressing. He has to close his eyes for a moment, but he chides himself for his weakness. He’s gotten better, so much better at ignoring all the people he sees who reminds him of his best friend. His dead best friend. In the moment he has his eyes closed, he does as his therapist suggested and catalogs all the things about the man in front of him that aren’t like Sherlock. He’s skinnier, his hair was longer and there was a look of uncertain anticipation on his face that is completely at odds with his memories of Sherlock. When he opened his eyes again, though, he’s forced to admit that whoever this man is, his resemblance to Sherlock is… uncanny, to say the least. Even the way he holds himself is familiar.

John forces himself to turn his eyes away, to look at Molly instead. “What’s going on?” he asks. His voice is trembling, and though he cannot see it, his eyes are wide and panicked. Molly looks as though she’s about to faint, and she doesn’t say anything, just shakes her head.

The man shifts forward, the movement almost involuntary. When John looks back to him, he looks as though he’s about to explode with some secret.

Molly’s hand finds Greg’s and clutches hard. He’s standing, petrified, and she can practically feel his mind whirling. She knows that John will figure it out any moment now, and she has no intention of being there when that happens. She’s done her part; Sherlock can deal with the rest. Now, all she can do is give them some privacy.

“Come on,” she whispers to Greg. He shoots for an incredulous look. Everything else aside, it goes against every rule of law and common sense to leave a citizen alone with a murderer. He’s broken enough rules for her already today. John is staring hard at the prisoner, and his mouth is just opening to say something when Molly pulls on his sleeve again. “Greg,” she says, more urgently. “Greg, please.” He looks back to the prisoner, who is staring at John as though he holds the answer to all the universes mysteries, and dammit, but he knows that look. When Molly pulls on his arm a third time, he doesn’t resist.

The door closed behind them, automatically locking the two men in together. Molly’s lip is bleeding slightly; in her anxiety, she’s bitten through the skin. Greg thinks he sees a tear make its way down her cheek before she wipes it hastily away. She withdraws her hand from his arm and pulls out her phone.

“I know,” she says before he can protest. “It’s horrible of me, and I swear I’m about to explain everything, but I promised I’d make a phone call first.”

“Molly –“ He’s not sure what he’s trying to say. In a flash of sympathy (only slightly tempered with frustration and annoyance and outright anger), he wonders if this is how she’s felt whole evening. “That looked like –“

“It was,” she says shortly. “Sorry, I just have to –“

He nods. What else can he do?

The phone has only been at her ear a moment before she starts talking. “Kate Martin,” she says. “Ex-army sniper who was shot earlier tonight. Have your boss take a look at the case. It’ll explain everything. No, he has to look at a few self. Yes, now. All right. Thank you.” She hangs up and turns to Greg with a little bit of a smile. “Mycroft’s people,” she says in way of explanation.

“Mycroft Holmes?” Greg says. Of course Mycroft Holmes – how many Mycrofts are there other worlds? – but if one Holmes brother is involved in all this…

“Yeah,” Molly says. She takes a deep breath and then adds, “I figured he ought to know you arrested his little brother.”

~*~

Inside the locked room, John’s eyes are fixed on the prisoner. He sees the man, but his mind doesn’t seem to be processing the image. The man is tall, and thin, with high cheekbones and piercing eyes. Only the eyes aren’t piercing, not right now. They’re soft and a little broken. He’s never seen those eyes look like that before – and he has seen them before, many times. He knows those eyes – he knows this man – knows him well.

“John,” the man says, and it’s too much, he’s too familiar, but it’s impossible, what he’s seeing, what he’s hearing – he can’t be here. “John,” the man says again, taking a faltering step forward. Dimly, he realizes that the man expects a reply.

“Who –“ He stops, swallows. Starts again. “Who are you?”

A flicker of pain darts across the man’s face, there for such a short instant that John almost doubts its existence. But it’s a look he is seen before, in happier days, the all-too human heartbreak of a genius. Yesterday, he would’ve sworn that he was the only one who had ever seen that book but – his mind flashes to Molly, and suddenly he’s overwhelmed by how much he doesn’t know. “You’re dead,” he tells the man, because, really, there is only one person in all of the universe, in all of history, who looks like that. “You’re dead, I saw you die – you killed yourself in front of me!”

“I’m sorry,” the man says. He clears his throat, and John flashes back to another day when he had thought that this man would die, a day by a pool when he had watched him struggle with a phrase as simple as “thank you.” But they hadn’t needed words to communicate, not really, not then. It seems so horribly wrong that they need them now.

“Do you –“ his voice breaks and he has to pause a moment before he continues. “You have any idea – the last two years –“

“I’m sorry,” the man says again.

“Is that all you can say?” John demands, and the tiniest hint of a smile darts across the man’s face. 

“Isn’t apology is the correct response when you’ve hurt someone?” he asks.

“The last time you did ‘what people do’ you were leaving a suicide note,” John points out. He surprised at the lack of bitterness in his voice. He feels rather numb. His heart is beating about 1,000,000 miles a minute and he still feels a little lightheaded, but his voice is surprisingly sunny.

“I’ve already apologized twice,” the man says, and John almost has to laugh. His brain catches up with him a moment later and he freezes, reaching his hand and grabbing the other man’s arm.

“Sherlock,” he says, the name familiar on how lit despite how hard he’s avoided saying it for the last two years. “Bloody hell, Sherlock.”


	4. Chapter 4

“He came to me that last day,” Molly says. Her eyes are fixed on the ceiling, on the floor, the desk – anywhere but Greg. She can feel his gaze on her, and it’s like an itch that won’t go away. “He knew Moriarty wanted him dead and he had guessed that it would be a public suicide of some sort. Moriarty called him up to the roof of St. Bart’s, just before I ran into him. He knew Moriarty had something on him, something that would make him jump. The plan we threw together… There was no guarantee it would work. I mean, we came up with it in, like, 10 minutes. We were mainly just hoping he could stop Moriarty completely. 

“Obviously, that didn’t happen. I got a text from him, I think just before he called John. All it said was ‘go’. So…” She throws up her hands in despair, wishing she had a better excuse. But this is Sherlock, for crying out loud, and if there’s anyone who will understand, it’s Greg, right? “I went. He had enlisted some of his homeless network to help and I – I provided the body.

“He showed up at the morgue about half an hour later. He had broken bones, of course – they’d padded his fall, but it was still, you know, 62 feet and 7 inches?” Yeah, maybe it’s a bit weird to know that, but hey, you would have memorized it too if you had that much riding on it. “He was – he didn’t even look human, he was frozen, I could practically see his heart breaking. I had smuggled some drugs down from the main hospital, just painkillers, and I basically just gave them to him and shoved him in the supply cabinet and prayed no one came in.”

“You gave him painkillers?” Greg interjects. It’s ridiculous that he’s concentrating on that, of all the ridiculous thing she’s saying, but what’s the point of saving a man’s life (something both of them have done now, though all he did was drop the poor kid off at the hospital) if you’re only going to feed his drug addiction?

“I made sure they were safe for him,” she says. “Checked, double checked, and triple checked, and quadruple checked. Wasn’t like I could do much else will I waited. I was going nearly insane with worry. We got lucky – so lucky, and so many ways. I was the only one working that day, and it was pretty slow and just – we got so incredibly lucky.

“He stayed in that supply closet for nearly 24 hours. There were people in and out to look at the body – well, you remember. Everyone was shaken, so I don’t think anyone noticed how crazed I was. Or if they did, well, I hadn’t really made my commitment to him at a secret, had I?” She’s aware that she’s becoming slightly hysterical and forces herself to close her mouth and breathe for a moment. 

“I kept telling you to go home,” Greg says. “You wouldn’t leave.” 

She laughs. “I had a dead man in my supply closet. How could I leave?”

“You were still there when I left,” he remembers, “and I was there well past midnight.” 

“I had to wait for everyone to leave,” she says. “Then I went and woke him so we could get to work fixing him up. He set his own bones, made his own casts – I couldn’t do anything but give him a place to sleep.”

Greg laughs, just a little. “That sounds like him,” he says softly, in that tone of voice that she remembers from the funeral, sad, reminiscent, and far more respectful than anyone had been of him when he was alive.

“Yeah,” she says, in that same tone, the one that she hated with every fiber of her being. “Well, he stayed with me until his funeral. He was there, you know, watching. I tried to tell him it was too dangerous, but, well, you know how that goes. And I didn’t push it. I thought – I don’t know, I thought he needed closure or something. He wasn’t doing well, in those days – I mean, you saw John. And he had the rest of us. Sherlock had nothing.” 

“He had you,” Greg points out, and she smiles. Two years ago, she would’ve brushed that off. She didn’t count, not when it came to things like that. But maybe Sherlock’s not the only one who’s changed over the last two years. She’s got on hidden depths. The thought makes her almost want to grin. She has hidden depths!

“What happened?” Greg asks. “On the roof, with Moriarty, he killed him, right? It looked like a suicide, but if anyone could fake that, it’s Sherlock.” He pauses, suddenly doubting everything he ever heard about that day. “Moriarty did die there?”

“Yes,” Molly says. “And I think he did kill himself, from what I’ve heard, but of course Sherlock caused it, somehow or another. He never told me much about what happened on the roof. But yeah, Moriarty was definitely dead.” She laughs, little self-deprecatingly. “I should know, I did the autopsy.”

“So then why did he jump?” Greg asks. “If Moriarty was dead…”

“He had allies,” Molly says. “His whole network was still out there.” She casts an anxious glance down the hallway. “Might still be out there, for all I know. That’s why we had to keep everything so secret. If they knew he was alive, they’d kill you.”

“Me?” he repeats, absolutely certain that she meant John.

She nods. “You, and Mrs. Hudson, and John. The only three people he really cares about.”

He pauses, completely stymied. Of all the people in the world, of the 7 billion people that inhabit the planet, he is one of the three people that Sherlock Holmes cared about? How is that even possible?

“Moriarty had snipers on the three of you,” Molly continues. “They had orders to shoot if he didn’t jump. I think – I don’t know, I’m still not entirely sure, but I think that Moran or Kate Martin or whatever her name is – I think she was one of snipers.”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” he says. “Hold on a sec. Kate was one of Moriarty’s snipers?” 

“I don’t know,” she says, frustrated. “He never tells me anything about what he’s working on, Mycroft’s people are worse than he is, and Irene – well, Irene’s Irene.”

“Irene?” Greg asks.

She flops a hand at him. “Ally. Ish. I don’t know. She and the Holmeses have… history of some sort. And I think she worked for Moriarty at some point. Anyway, she didn’t want Mycroft knowing about her involvement, Sherlock didn’t want or Mycroft knowing about him –“

“Not even his own brother?” Greg breaks in. He would be the first person to tell you that the Holmes brothers have an unusual relationship, but all the same…

“I know,” Molly says. “Believe me, I tried to convince him to talk to Mycroft – goodness knows I didn’t want to do it.”

“So, what,” Greg says. “You’ve been playing messenger monkey between the Holmes brothers and some person of dubious trustworthiness for two years? Without telling anyone?”

She shrugs, still resolutely looking anywhere but at him. “About sums it up.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Bloody hell.”

There’s a moment of silence, when he tries to catch her eye and she just tries not to cry. He can almost feel worry radiating off her, and quite frankly, he can’t blame her. Try as he might, he can’t blame her for any of this mess. He learned a long time ago that judging people for what Sherlock Holmes makes them do a stupid, pointless, and more often than not backfires in his face.

“Doctor Hooper,” a disembodied voice says behind them, and they both jump, Greg’s hand instinctively going for his pocket. Neither of them had heard anyone approach, but when they turn, it’s only Mycroft Holmes (though saying only Mycroft Holmes is like saying only the president of the United States or only the Pope). “May speak you for a moment?” There’s something a little off about him, Molly thinks. Of course, she’s only ever seen him half a dozen times, but her impression has always been of an unshakable, immovable, ruthless – not even a person, really, more like force that you can’t even begin to reckon with. But now? She’s shaken him (and she takes a perverse pleasure in that fact). He looks as perfectly put together as she remembers, but there’s a wild look in his eyes that she can’t quite place.

“You can talk in front of Greg,” she tells him. “He knows.” 

“And what, exactly, is it that he knows?” Mycroft asks, and suddenly Molly’s able to recognize the look in his eyes. It’s hope, the same hope that the unbelievable can be true that she’s sure was written all over her face when she saw Sherlock – god, was it only four hours ago?

“Did you look at the case?” Molly asks him, because she has no idea how to do this. “The one about Kate Martin?”

“Sabrina Moran,” Mycroft says. “We were looking for her for quite some time.” He hesitates, just for a moment, but it’s enough to freak Greg out (not that he wasn’t already a little freaked out – seeing your dead friend (they were friends, weren’t they? If you sacrifice your life for someone, even if you’re only faking it, that makes you friends, right?) walking and talking like nothing ever went wrong tends to do that to you). He’s never seen Mycroft less than 110% certain about what he was doing. “The man who killed her,” Mycroft says, “he was one of yours?” 

“I’m one of his, actually,” Molly corrects him quietly. “He’s been calling most of the shots.”

“And you simply forgot to mention this?” Mycroft asks.

She opens her mouth to apologize, but, hell, it feels as if she hasn’t done a thing but apologize all day, and it’s hardly as if Mycroft never kept any secrets from her. “No,” she says. “I very deliberately did everything my power to keep it from you. Not that we didn’t need your help, but once he found a way that we could get that without having to tell you exactly what was going on, there was really no point.” She glanced that Greg, and she’s sorry, she really is, only she can’t be, not entirely, because she was right, in the end. “I made him keep it a secret from all of you. There were times when he came very close to convincing himself that he had to contact one of you, for one reason or another, and I talked him out of it.”

“Why?” Mycroft asks, and it’s the first time in a long time that he has asked that question. Growing up, Sherlock was a curious one, the one who looked at everything and had to know the reason behind it. Mycroft had always been far more interested in looking forward, and anticipating the next move. He can pick people apart in an instant, understand what motivated them in less time than it takes for most people to see what color their eyes were. But he has to admit that Molly Hooper has him puzzled.

From the beginning, he’s been surprised that she was Sherlock’s messenger of choice. It was baffling, though knowing what he knows now and factoring in all the corpses Sherlock must’ve needed, it makes a certain measure of sense. He had assumed that her actions were simply the product of her infatuation and a naturally romantic mindset (carrying out the last wishes of a beloved tragic hero and all) but he’s now being forced to reconsider his opinion of her. Reconsidering his opinions is not something Mycroft Holmes does lightly.

“The more people who knew he was alive, the higher the chances of it getting out to Moriarty’s people,” Molly says, a little surprised that he has to ask. And while it’s probably what he would’ve done, Mycroft’s rather surprised at finding such a practical mind in Molly Hooper, of all places. 

“Well,” he says. “May I see him?”

Greg looks to Molly, just as he has been doing all evening, and suddenly it strikes him how preposterous that is. This is his jail, his arrest, his job – shouldn’t he at least be calling some of the shots? (He tries to squash down the little bit of him that, absurdly, is jealous. For so long, Sherlock was his responsibility, his secret, and, well, let’s just say that he’ll be damned if Sherlock’s first case back isn’t with him.)

“John’s with him,” Molly says, as if their stress levels weren’t already high enough. Now, they’re all trying to imagine what’s happening in the room down the hall.

There’s an ominous quiet behind the door as they approach Sherlock’s cell (and in any other circumstances, wouldn’t Greg just be over the moon about that – Sherlock has a cell, one that he can be locked in!) He pulls out the key with more than a little trepidation, and suddenly it hits him that this is real, that Sherlock Holmes is actually behind that door, alive and well, and – bloody hell. He pushes open the door before he can drive himself any more insane.

Sherlock is back in his chair, staring at John as though he holds the answers to all the universes’ questions. Then again, Mycroft thinks, that’s how he’s always looked at John, if you knew how to look through all layers of boring and idiot.

John, on the other hand, a staring quite determinedly at the ceiling. He’s leaning against the wall by the door, as though waiting for them to come and relieve him. His face is set in a way that is all too familiar to the unusual trio crowded in the doorway – it’s the special John-Watson-is-experiencing-too-much-emotion-so-he-is-going-to-shut-down-for-a-little-(long)-while look. They saw it a lot after the funeral.

But it’s not quite the same look that haunted him (haunted all of them) in the months after that day two years ago, Molly thinks. Not exactly. There is a resignation there, but it’s not that depressed five-status-of-grief resignation. The resignation that they all seem to have, when faced with Sherlock, the bloody-hell-I’m-actually-going-to-do-what’s-this-madman-says-aren’t-I? look. Sherlock looks away from John for a split second (looking all the while as if doing so is akin to going without oxygen) and rolls his eyes dramatically when he sees Mycroft. It’s so familiar that Molly wants to cry, and so, the first time all day (for the first time in two years) she lets a tear or two trickle out. Greg’s hand finds her arm, just above the elbow, and grips it tight.

It’s going to be all right, she thinks, and for the first time in forever, it’s not just a meaningless platitude. It’s a real, concrete thought, born of the evidence before her very eyes. Mycroft and Sherlock will deal with Irene. The biggest part of Moriarty’s network has been neutralized. Sherlock’s here, and he’s safe – they’re all safe, so what else matters? 

Everything else will sort itself out. John will forgive Sherlock. So will Greg, and Mrs. Hudson, and Mycroft, and maybe, someday, Anthea, if she can be bothered to think about such mundane things. They’ll forgive Molly, too, and eventually she might even forgive herself. Already, all of them are looking better than they have in months (27 months and 20 days). 

So yeah, Molly might like corpses a little more than the next person, but even she occasionally has to admit that there is something wonderful about bringing a roomful of people back to life.


End file.
